Does baby know best?

Lily Ambrose beams and kicks a chubby bare foot when she sees the steamed broccoli coming. At 6 1/2 months old, Lily has no teeth and barely two weeks' worth of gastronomic experience. But that won't stop her from making short work of the vegetable plunked on her high chair tray.

Lily Ambrose beams and kicks a chubby bare foot when she sees the steamed broccoli coming. At 6 1/2 months old, Lily has no teeth and barely two weeks' worth of gastronomic experience. But that won't stop her from making short work of the vegetable plunked on her high chair tray.

Lily prods, then clutches a spear in each dimpled fist. She takes her time chomping and cooing until they have been reduced to a mound of green rubble.

What, no rice cereal? And where are the puréed sweet potatoes that generations of mothers have so carefully spooned into tiny mouths?

Not for this baby. Lily, fed only breast milk until a couple of weeks ago, now also sucks slices of orange and gnaws on toast dipped in baba ghanouj. Her mother has a food processor in the family's downtown Toronto condo "but it's still in the box," says Cindy Ambrose, 35. And there's not a jar of baby pears to be found.

Instead, she and her husband Jayson have opted for an unconventional way of introducing solid foods. In Britain, where the term originates, it's known as "baby-led weaning" but many Toronto parents refer to it as "baby-led solids."

The approach skips the strictly mushy phase of pablum and applesauce fed via spoon in favour of finger foods that beginner eaters explore at their own pace, starting at the age of 6 months.

"It seemed intuitive to me," says Jayson, 31. He was a tad nervous at the beginning, especially when Lily gagged a couple of times. But neither parent, always close by, has ever had to intervene.

The trend gained momentum since the fall with the release of Baby-led Weaning: Helping Your Baby To Love Good Food by British writer Gillian Rapley, a public health nurse and former midwife. The book sparked a flurry of forums, chat rooms and recipe websites and caught the attention of online parent groups in the GTA.

Rapley says the seeds of baby-led weaning were planted during her 25 years visiting families. Many parents fretted about older babies who refused foods, spat out lumps and were constipated.

"But all of those (issues) would seem to be resolved if they just let the child do it themselves."

Seven years ago, when bodies like the World Health Organization began recommending that babies consume only breast milk for the first six months, "it all fit in so perfectly," Rapley said in a phone interview from Britain.

She says, by 6 months, babies can sit upright, put food in their mouths and chew – so they are developmentally ready to start experimenting with self-feeding. She stresses that they must always be sitting and that adults must always closely supervise.

In the days of starting solids at 3 or 4 months, it made sense to begin with cereal or puréed fruit because babies couldn't manage anything else, Rapley says.

She believes self-feeding with solids is a natural extension of breastfeeding, where babies eat at their own pace, and sets the stage for confident, less fussy eating habits down the road.

But her approach is a departure from what the Canadian Pediatric Society and many physicians recommend: cereal and mashed or puréed foods at 6 months, with textured finger foods added at 8 or 9 months.

Kalnins, co-author of Better Baby Food, says there isn't a lot of conclusive research about the best way to introduce solids. The most important thing, she says, is that parents know their own babies and start new foods safely. Some will need purées to make the transition while others may grab a green bean off their mother's plate and start gnawing.

She notes it's best not to wait too long before introducing chunky foods. "But I'd still recommend, until I see studies showing otherwise, more of a mashed or puréed food initially."

Kalnins also stresses the importance of iron for older babies. So if they aren't eating iron-fortified cereals, parents must ensure they are getting it from other sources such as meat.

Cindy Ambrose says she planned to make her own purées until a couple of months ago, when she heard about the baby-led approach.

She has been reading and talking to other mothers ever since and is now committed to letting Lily discover new textures and flavours on her own. "I think it makes life a lot easier."

Lily, a blossoming 20 pounds and still a frequent breastfeeder, seems to relish the experience.

Toronto mother Nalini Bateman, 39, says she wishes she had discovered it earlier.

With her first daughter, Samiya, now 5, Bateman bought organics, puréed and froze everything and assumed it would all go according to plan. Instead, "they were all spat out."

She tried for four months with little success. Mealtime became a source of maternal anxiety and a battle of wills. When Dhanya, 3, came along, Bateman decided to do things differently. As soon as the baby started reaching for food, "what was on my plate went on hers."

Dhanya played with it, sucked on it and gradually began to eat. Bateman eventually puréed some foods, but always took her cue from her daughter.

To this day, Samiya is particular about her food while Dhanya approaches everything with gusto.

"I feel a lot had to do with the whole beginning experience."

Georgetown doula Samantha Leeson says even though it's billed as a new movement, the notion of baby-led solids has been adopted by plenty of mothers over the years.

She never used a food mill for her kids, now 11 and 8, and fed them according to what they were interested in.

But she says Rapley's book and the wave of discussion are helpful for parents who may feel alone in their choices and who want to find like-minded parents or share ideas.

Rapley agrees. "I would never claim to have invented it. It has been going on for eons but it hasn't had a name," she says.

Bringing it into the open is "recognition that there is another way."

For more information visit: babyled.com and rapleyweaning.com

-Andrea Gordon

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.